Elysium Fire

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Elysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera.

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise.

But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives.

Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants. And these "melters" leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths....

As panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies.

For more from Alastair Reynolds, check out:

Revenger

©2018 Alastair Reynolds (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Good story, narrator hurts it.

If you could sum up Elysium Fire in three words, what would they be?

Hot Headed Children

What was one of the most memorable moments of Elysium Fire?

When the children realized what they were

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator, John Lee, has a very bad habit of modulating the volume of his voice- he consistently reduces the volume through a sentence- starting loud and getting quieter almost always. If listening in a noisy environment, (like a car) this can mean missing content. This is definitely not the only book where he has done this- It was *FAR* worse in 'Pandora's Star' - it is enough that If I see the book is narrated by Mr. Lee, I hesitate a little.

In every other respect Mr. Lee's performance is exemplary- the characters are performed distinctly and consistently. I make the mention only so that he can improve future performances.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Forgetting isn't perfect

Strong story in the Glitterband

Some things remain unclear to me after this listen, but that's usually the case with Glitterband stories. John Lee's voicings are sometimes inadequately differentiated, but his unique, crisp elocution is strong compensation for that. As usual with Reynolds, the story is intelligent, though I remain skeptical of the pure democracy notion.

Terrific

I am a big fan of Alastair Reynolds work and Elysium Fire is no exception.
As with his other works, the author slowly teases out the threads from a densely woven narrative, allowing your anticipation and imagination to become engaged and consumed by the breadcrumbs he has so deftly placed in your mind.
As usual, the performance of John Lee can not be overstated as being tremendously rich and thoroughly complimentary to the work.
While this book (as with all AR books I've read to date) possesses the essential ingredients for a good sci-fi story, it is with the addition of self consistency, though provoking world building, and the underpinnings of strong storytelling that separate the good from the great in this genre, and Elysium Fire delivers on all counts.

Another awesome story from Mr. Reynolds

I really loved and enjoyed the story, and the narration from Mr. Lee was excellent.

Loved it!

I really like this deep dive into the height of the Glitter Band. The rest of RS shows us the fallen and rotten future, but the tech in this story is fantastic 😍

Too arcane this time

This left too much to interpret, and the post script Drew the story we had been told into question. I hate unreliable observer syndrome. Tell me the story, but don't then tell me you lied to me.

Well rounded and fresh

Mr Reynolds has delivered a story with well developed and interesting characters and a completely fresh story in the revelation space universe. I can't wait for the next installment. Where will prefect Dryfus end up next? Will we find out more about the melding plague? A wild New turn?

Great police drama in a sci-go setting

Incredibly detailed, complex, twisting plot, you don’t get much better than this for science, fiction or crime drama.

Awesome

Everything he writes is amazing. This one is so so so so so so good.

Very clever but less captivating than previous

I enjoyed this book. Characters very strong. Moral situations quite thought provoking. The glitter band setting shone somewhat dimmer than in previous works in the series. The story seems to have been constructed for the sake of the twists, not the other way around.